very difficuilt to narrow down. to edge out the possinilities, ill lay out some rules as to what noise is in this thread, and what applies.

1. no noise rock. noise rock, even st its most dissonant, is still rock music, and therefore not noise, so i dont want anyome giving answers like chrome, lightning bolt, royal trux, and obviously, boredoms.
2. we shall only use bands/artists who operate in noise 100 percent of the time. for example, if we were going to name artists who have a sound that is very reminescent of noise, or maybe has noise as a part of its sound, cock esp, borbetomagus, caroliner, and to live and shave in la would all be on my list. but these bands dont strictly make noise, cock esp mixes noise, punk, concrete, free jazz, 80s metal, and electronica, borbetomagus is free noise-jazz, caroliner is industrial folk/experimental noise
etc.. also, many of us would put keiji haino on our lists, but what makes haino so great is he makes noise, noise rock, psychedelia, psychedelic folk, etc.. no keiji.
3. some genres get lumped in with noise, but arent completley so, bands such as these will be omitted. im talking drone, ambient drone, and dark ambient mainly. all these genres are based on sound, loud, occasionally scary, and more often than not, electronic, like noise, but they arent noise.

ok, so we will only include artists who we are 100 percent positive are either noise or power electronics, this will make the choices easier and hopefully avoid unwanted arguements as to who is/isnt noise.

or just go outside and listen to the true NOISE of the world around you, especially on a large city street.

I own several noice records and I have never heard any of them more than once. It's just me. I like some structure, like lightning bolt or borbbetomagus or what lee ranaldo's solo albums have, where even though it is not a standard structure, you can see progression and the piece of music is whole in an of itself.

You were the one who set the standards and criteria, and they don't even come close. Certainly by your own criteria above, Cock ESP would be ten times more a "noise" act than Smegma; they have certainly released a million "pure noise" albums and existed in that world for many years before branching out. Smegma is an improv group.

whatever dude, as far as i can tell smegma is an improv group, but they make noise, and all thier albums are noise, and they have never existed outside of noise, and are a gigantic influence on contemporary noise, cock has made records with rock sounds, jazz sounds, whatever. i didnt say improv can not be included. i cant be bothered about smegma right now.

if it helps any i knew smegma was gonna raise some eyebrows, but nonetheless they are and always will be noise to these ears.

Merzbow. How do you people listen to this crap? Seriously. A guy making screeching feedback on a laptop, cuts it up and labels each as a seperate song. Wow

youre missing the point. anyways, just because you dont like it, doesnt mean your opinion is the end all authority on the matter. its an opinion, and i respect your opinion, but to call something crap on account of you not understanding it is rather absurd. bottomline, merzbow is a legend, and as close to a 'noise genius' as possible, and hes raised the bar for extremities in electronics and sound art for over 20 years, and his music is far more than as you describe.

You listed all the major ones I really like, I'd put Mammal on there somewhere.

mammal is one of the best current noise artists for sure. one of his records, cant remember which, but it had like honest to god hip hop beats and scratch type sounds. i thoght that was ballsy, as theres been hip hop artists who have fucked around with noise (public enemy, kevin martin, dalek, etc...), but never the other way around. it sounded way cool too.

i think that i decided that i like noise more when its a means rather than an end. like in early animal collective records, they incorporate noise, but then that have acoustic guitars play over it.
grsanted ii love some noise sometimes, like mezbow every once and a while or borbetomagus, but i'd rather hear noisy stuff that has other stuff going on
btw does burning star core count?
cause his albums with hotogotoisu especially the 1st one is amazing.
and monosodic rocks my sox off

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Oh, and for whatever it's worth, our thread's progeniteur [sp?] is talking about noise the genre, not noise the adjective. As such I'll agree with whichever list whatever Herr & Bowels listed, because he's not a cock but still likes this music.

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